MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis spoke Wednesday morning in Miami Beach to ring in the Discover Boating Miami International Boat Show, where he announced a “boater freedom initiative.”
Giving remarks at the Miami Beach Convention Center, DeSantis said his office has enjoyed working with Miami-area officials on a number of issues, most recently on efforts to maintain safety during spring break. After also announcing that 2024 broke another record for tourism — describing some 142.9 million travelers to Florida as a “pretty good” increase from 2023 and the highest on record — DeSantis described the state would embark on realizing a “boater freedom initiative” in large part to improve relations between boaters and law enforcement.
“On the waters in and around the state of Florida, we do not want to have our boaters to be unnecessarily interfered with by, sometimes well-meaning law enforcement, but sometimes it doesn’t work,” DeSantis said. “(...) We want to establish a right to boat in the state of Florida by preempting local regulations that ban the sale or use of boats based on fuel sources.”
The governor went on to say that current laws allow state and local law enforcement to pull over boaters with no probable cause, adding ensuing personal property searches are liable to lead to further law enforcement action beyond safety compliance.
“As part of our initiative, we will end this practice by prohibiting the use of safety inspection as a probable cause to pull over the boater. If you have a reason to do it, if there’s probable cause just like you would do anything, then by all means do it, but people who are just out enjoying themselves when there’s no indication that anything is wrong, they should not be subjected to these intensive searches,” DeSantis said. “So, this is a fair and balanced approach. If somebody is breaking the law, they will be held accountable, but if you’re pulled over while you’re in a boat, it just there has to be a reason. You can’t just do it for kicks.”
The governor’s office will direct the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to proactively provide a “Florida Freedom Boater” decal at registration, what DeSantis said will reassure law enforcement that “the boater has done the due diligence of inspecting and maintaining proper boater safety requirements.”
Further, DeSantis told the crowd that he is calling to instate a two-month marine fuel tax holiday which would run from Memorial Day weekend through July 4th if it makes it into the state budget.
Watch DeSantis’ remarks again in the video player below or by clicking here.
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